A message allegedly written by the leader of the Afghan Taliban predicts imminent victory as more foreign troops die and Taliban fighters better understand NATO tactics, acquire more weaponry, shoot down more aircraft and kill more senior officials. The lengthy statement released Monday, signed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the movement's reclusive, one-eyed leader, follows President Obama's announcement in June that 10,000 American troops will leave this year. The U.S. drawdown is part of an accelerated withdrawal by foreign troops ahead of a 2014 deadline for transferring security to the Afghans.

The Afghan Taliban military commander captured last month in Pakistan has refused to provide information that could be used against his insurgent network, prompting the CIA to push for his transfer to a U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday. The proposal reflects U.S. frustration with the interrogation of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was taken into custody by Pakistanis working with the CIA nearly a month ago. It also points to the Obama administration's dilemma over what to do with so-called high-value detainees.

October 2, 2011 | By Alex Rodriguez and Aimal Yaqubi, Los Angeles Times

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Sunday strongly rejected claims that the nation's premier spy agency was involved in the assassination of Afghanistan's chief negotiator with the Taliban. Afghan and U.S. officials have been increasing pressure on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, to sever its ties with the Haqqani network, an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban regarded by Washington as the most dangerous security threat to U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials cast doubt early Monday on Pakistani intelligence statements that Karachi officials had arrested a Southern California native, a top propagandist for Al Qaeda who is wanted by the U.S. on treason charges. U.S. intelligence agencies spent Sunday sorting out conflicting reports on the purported arrest of Adam Gadahn of Riverside. By late Sunday night, U.S. officials said the picture remained unclear. "In terms of who may have been arrested, the Pakistani rumor mill belched out three very different possibilities in about six hours," one U.S. official said.

Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency not only funds and trains Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but also maintains its own representation on the insurgency's leadership council, claims a new report issued by the London School of Economics. Assertions that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, continues to nurture links with the Afghan Taliban are not new. But the scope of that relationship claimed by the report's author, Matt Waldman, is startling and could prove damaging to the fragile alliance Washington is trying to foster with Pakistan, its military establishment, and its weak civilian government led by President Asif Ali Zardari.

At least a dozen people were killed in Pakistan's Kurram tribal region today when missiles believed to have been fired by a U.S. drone hit a building used by militants, a witness said. "Afghan Taliban were holding an important meeting there when the missiles were fired," an intelligence official in the region said. Abdul Rahim, a cleric, said he saw bodies pulled from the rubble. Dawn News TV channel said up to 15 people were believed killed. "A drone is still flying in the area and smoke can be seen over the area where the missiles struck," said a paramilitary official.

A growing number of Taliban militants in the Pakistani border region are refusing to collaborate with Al Qaeda fighters, declining to provide shelter or assist in attacks in Afghanistan even in return for payment, according to U.S. military and counter-terrorism officials. The officials, citing evidence from interrogation of detainees, communications intercepts and public statements on extremist websites, say that threats to the militants' long-term survival from Pakistani, Afghan and foreign military action are driving some Afghan Taliban away from Al Qaeda.

Months before the Obama administration this year urged Congress to provide $2 billion in military aid to Pakistan as part of an ongoing strategy to win over a reluctant ally in the war on terror, Washington's top diplomat in Islamabad had flatly warned that a cash-for-cooperation approach would never work. Ramped-up financial aid would not be enough incentive for Pakistan to sever ties with militant groups that attack U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, then-Ambassador Anne Patterson said last year in recently disclosed diplomatic cables, because Islamabad views those groups as a hedge against the prospect of a pro-Indian government in Kabul.

February 17, 2012 | By Alex Rodriguez and Laura King, Los Angeles Times

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday sought to secure help from Pakistani leaders in facilitating peace talks with Pakistan-based Afghan Taliban leaders, while the militant group denied any interest in negotiating with an "impotent" administration. Karzai's visit to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, came amid reports that he had said in an interview that the U.S. and Afghan governments had begun secret talks with the Afghan Taliban. In recent months, U.S. officials have been meeting with Taliban envoys to discuss the establishment of a Taliban office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.